Angelo, the third son of Magister Paulus, had a son named Niccolò, and the two together made the candelabrum of S. Paolo; a quaint mediæval piece of sculpture, of the style of Magister Roberto's font, but with some marvellously beautiful interlaced work. There is also Arnolfo with his partner Peter (Arnolfus cum suo socio Petro), who made the inlaid and sculptured tabernacle in S. Paolo fuori le Mura in 1285.
Merzario says that we must not confuse this Arnolfo with the Florentine architect. Camille Boito, however, opines that he is the same. Arnolfo had certainly a taste for the polychrome in architecture, which may or may not have been imbibed in Rome, while working at that lodge with Peter—whom Cavalcaselle considers was one of the Cosmati, and who certainly did the ciborium at S. Paolo, though Arnolfo's name is absent in that work. I have found some other members of the Roman Lodge inscribed above a bronze door in S. John Lateran. On the archivolt is written—"Hui opis Ubert et Petr: F͡rs. Māgistri Lausenen. Fecer͡unt." Over another bronze door in the sacristy they are written as—"Ubert Magister, et Petrus. Ei: Fr. Placentini Fecerunt Hoc. op.," and the date A.D. 1196. Boito[294] sees nothing in this but a perplexing contradiction, that in one place the brothers say they are from Lausanne, and in another from Piacenza. It is to me plain enough. They are natives of Lausanne, and consequently Lombards: they are also brethren of the lodge of Piacenza, where they had most likely worked while the cathedral and other buildings were being erected.
The date of the Baptistery door, and the connection of its maker with the guild, are verified by the inscription on the other panel of the bronze door, which says it was done in the fifth year of the pontificate of Pope Celestine III. (i.e. 1196), and that Father Giovanni, Cardinal of S. Lucia, the Jubente, or camerarius of the Opera, had it made.[295]
This door had engraved on it the design of the ancient façade of S. John Lateran—a perfectly Lombard front consisting of two round-arched arcades, with a little pillared gallery above.
Pulpit in Church of S. Cesareo in Palatio, Rome. Mediæval Sculpture inlaid in Mosaic.
(From a photograph by Alinari.)
The door of the Sacristy must have been cast before that of the Baptistery, as in the first work Uberto is entitled Magister, and Petrus only named as his brother, whereas in the second the younger brother must have also graduated, and has in his turn attained to the dignity of Magister.
We trace the same gradual progress through the ranks of the Guild in the Cosmati family, whose connection with the Roman lodge we must now trace. Several generations of them were Magistri—